Following a tough year for the entire mobile industry badly affected by the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, 2021 was widely expected to put major smartphone vendors like Samsung back on track in terms of both sales numbers and profits.
Was the Galaxy S21 series a hit?
No, it was not. Sorry, Samsung, but while analyzing the financial well-being of the company’s mobile division as a whole is definitely a complex matter worthy of careful consideration and healthy debate, the S21 “situation” feels… pretty straightforward.
That’s apparently more or less how many Galaxy S20-series units Samsung managed to ship worldwide during a similar timeframe… in the midst of an even more challenging period for the smartphone market.
So how many smartphones did Samsung make in 2021?
“Slightly over” 300 million, apparently, which is by no means a number to be ashamed of. Obviously, that’s not also how many smartphones the company shipped last year, with the latter figure estimated to stand in the “late-200 million units” ballpark.
Due to chip shortages, Samsung shipped exactly zero S21 FE units last year.
That’s not stopping Samsung from setting yet another lofty production goal of 334 million smartphones for 2022, roughly 285 million units of which could come from its own factories. That would be up from around 239 million in 2021, with the rest being technically manufactured by companies like Wintech and Huaqin and merely sold under Samsung’s banner.